


Calculated Risk

by Sarie_Fairy



Series: Fictober 2020 [10]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Dripping in UST, Drunk Sex, F/M, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, MSR, Mention of Ed Jerse, Mentions of Never Again, Post-Episode: s07e02 The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, RST, Semi-Public Sex, Sex, Sex Talk, drunk talk, mention of Diana Fowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:33:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26921452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarie_Fairy/pseuds/Sarie_Fairy
Summary: FICTOBER Day 10 - Prompt: “yes I did, what about it?”There was something Scully had wanted to ask Mulder for months. Would alcohol loosen her tongue enough for her to ask? And how would he respond?Set sometime in season 7, after The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: Fictober 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951573
Comments: 74
Kudos: 196





	1. Chapter 1

Poking her drink with a short straw, pondering—something was heavy on her tongue. It had settled there months ago, threatening to choke her.  _ One more of these _ , she deliberated, swirling the ice, and she might say it.

Manoeuvring, seeking further comfort, the back of her pantyhose snagged on a sharp fissure in the worn, blood-red faux-leather upholstery. Biting her lip, she stuck her finger through the tiny hole, carelessly expanding it, feeling the slippery sweat gathered behind her knee. 

Sliding into the U-shaped booth opposite, Mulder replaced the torn garment for Scully’s attention, landing a fresh gin and tonic on a coaster in front of her. He sat—air puffing from the shared cushioned bench like a bellows; cool through the tear on her tacky skin. In her catalogue of Mulders, it was this one—case-worn, floppy-haired, sticky shirt, Mulder—who would make her come in her reveries; raw, and intense, and slightly unhinged.

They were at the back of a slowly crowding airport bar. The workday throng, trickling in. A cancelled flight—mechanical issues—destined them three hours to kill before their trip back to DC. Late enough on a Friday afternoon to choose a bar over a diner, alcohol over caffeine, while they waited.

An hour and a half in and Scully gulped the melting, icy, concoction in the glass in her hand. Swapping it for the other—the crucial last dose of truth serum, she mused. Mulder in possession of a beer; maybe his fourth. She wasn’t sure if it would make him a compliant interrogee—loosen his tongue the way he sat there loosening his tie. 

Having ostensibly exhausted the ubiquitous discussion about the case, completing the perfunctory ‘can you believe small-town law enforcement’ chat, the subject could change. Time for Mulder to play word games or hypotheticals, or for Scully to bring up something she found interesting in her latest copy of New Scientist before they were free to get personal. This was how it went—an intimate conversation had to be eased into. Had to begin under the guise of anything else. 

“So, Scully, if we were in the UK,” he began, “and, it was sometime in the 1600s. Let’s say it’s 1634—,” a playful glint in his eye. “You’re hosting an afternoon gathering of all of London’s highest society ladies...” He paused, momentarily, Scully thought to scrape together the right combination of words, from his alcohol-addled imagination. Continuing, “… to enhance your husband’s textile business.” He waggled his brows at her. “New trade routes have opened, you see, and fabulous colourful fabrics from the Mediterranean are beginning to garner popularity—”

“Mulderrr, is there a point. A question?”

“Hear me out,” he pacified, shooting her a grin. “So, to accompany the gin, what would you serve as the ‘dish of choice’, that fine afternoon?” He nodded toward her drink with a swift bow of his head. “Gin, neat,” he clarified.

“Um,” Scully blew air from her mouth, her lips directing it up over her face to a piece of hair slung across her brow, shifting it off her skin. She would play, guess, knowing it had to be obscure. Licking her bottom lip, she screwed up her face a little more than usual, alcohol exaggerating her expression, “cucumber sandwiches?”

Mulder smiled, “well, you might, but then you would have to deal with the fallout from the women there, for not pairing it with the  _ correct _ dish of choice, Scully,” he sighed, shaking his head solemnly. The next part he said in a posh British accent, “and we wouldn’t want that now, would we?”

“No?” Scully responded, furrowing her brow, but playing along. 

“No, no, you would serve it with gingerbread, Scully. Don’t want to piss off those bitches in the pallor, do we?”

“Bitches?” she quizzed, raising an eyebrow.  _ He was drunk. _

“Oh, they were vicious,” he told her, amused. 

“Gingerbread, huh?” she considered, screwing up her nose, “I did not know that.” She drew out the I, accompanying it with the start of a grin. “And where did you garner such useful information, Mulder?” she enquired, hiding the conclusion of her smile behind her drink.

“Um,” he began, seizing the straw from her abandoned tumbler, dropping it between his lips between quaffs of his beer. “A little English pub I used to frequent, near Oxford, when I lived there. It had facts about liquor, I remember, decorating the walls. Posters.” His features shifted; rearrange into the familiar way he would hold them when recollecting something. “That, I believe, is the only one I can recall, though.”

Swiping her tongue slowly across her bottom lip, giving herself a moment to think, Scully joined in. “Did you know that a Gimlet was created by the Royal Navy?”

Mulder’s brows raised in interest and he shook his head.

“Can you guess why they invented it?  _ Invented _ ?” Scully questioned; not sure she had used the correct word—her mind slightly muddled.

“Yeah, invented works.” Mulder encouraged nodding. “Can’t say I know that one.”

“They mixed lime juice with the gin for the sailors to drink,” she explained, “to prevent scurvy.”

“Ah, makes sense,” he agreed. “A gin and tonic cocktail originated in India,” he announced, pleased with himself.

“I did know that,” Scully declared, swallowing the smile from her face as she felt his eyes on her. Felt him looking at her from across the table, not sure what he was thinking, why he was just looking. Like he was waiting to say something, or for her to. She eyed him right back, not breaking his gaze, almost forgetting to breathe in and out under the weight of his stare. 

The gin was warm in her belly, thick in her blood, slackening her bones. Even though she knew it was none of her business, the not knowing was chipping away at her, eroding something between them. 

Mulder took a big swig of his beer, letting her go and turning his head with the neck of the beer at his lips as he looked around the bar. 

“I ordered some fries,” he stated, at the precise instant she asked—

“Did you wear a condom?”

His head snapped back as if he were seeking to confirm he had misheard; the look on her face to verify his error. He was not mistaken - her expression, a fight between uncertainty, embarrassment and stubborn indignation that she had an absolute right to ask him such a thing.

“What?”

“Did you wear a condom?” Scully repeated, wilfully.

Then Mulder did that thing. That adorable puppy-eye, subtle head shake, bottom lip pouting out further than usual, look of inquisition or disbelief. This time a gorgeous combination of the two and Scully’s heart shifted inside, making it harder for her to swallow.

Except that she was calling him out on the hazardous topic of Diana Fowley, she was sure he would have teased her. Volleyed back something about her being jealous. So, she debated as if he had.

“As your physician Mulder, I have an interest in your—”  _ be kind Dana, do not speak ill of the dead _ , “—in your health.”

“Ah, my health,” he said as if he  _ had _ preceded by goading her with accusations of being possessive over him.

“Yes,” she said with feigned confidence. When he didn’t speak, just clocked her an unreadable stare, she pressed on. “There were a number of people also possibly involved …  _ with her _ .” Scully swallowed the last two words; the alcohol jostling her forward onto shaky ground.

He leaned back in the seat, something dancing in his eyes. Something dangerous. 

Scully wasn’t a big drinker, and when she did drink, it was usually a glass of red—white when she would dine with her mother, Maggie’s choice. The gin was a calculated decision, and it was doing its intended job—boosting her bravado. Helping her push forward, flout the usual warning signs. 

“So—” 

Mulder cocked his head.

“—did you?” She asked again.

Here was the part she wasn’t sure about. Wasn’t sure what he would say, what would come next. It was a hunch. One she was reasonably confident of, mind you, and she wanted to give the impression that she already knew. Wasn’t going to come out and ask—the topic of one another’s sexual history was somewhat uncharted territory. Present it like it was no big deal—just a doctor checking in on her only patient’s sexual health. 

He took a swig of his beer. Eyes fixed to hers, unblinking, righted the bottle and replied, “Yes Doc. Safety first.” 

Another pull on the neck of his Shiner Bock and the air shifted. Congealed around them. 

Somewhere a bee buzzed its wings, and there was an avalanche high on an Appalachian mountain, and the gently swaying light above their table focused a little sharper. Everybody else, everything else, disappeared. 

Scully let go of the bottom lip she didn’t know she was chewing. Awareness of how she was holding her features, acute. All energy focused on controlling her body language—though she had no such charge over the next thing that came out of her mouth. “So, you fucked her then.” It was a statement, delivered in a low tone, the intensity of her voice a counter to the volume with which the words left her lips; an undertone.

Gone were his puppy dog eyes, replaced with a penetrating look she’d seen before, one reserved for strangers across interrogation desks.

“No,” he drawled, a little drunk. “Nope.  _ She _ fucked  _ me _ .”

Her jaw opened, and a scoff fell out. Oh, Scully was ready to play. “You were sexually assaulted by her, Mulder?” She deadpanned. Any concern that would ordinarily accompany that line of questioning, devoid from her voice.

When he didn’t immediately answer, bile stirred in her stomach, threatening to tear up the back of her throat. Fuck. She couldn’t read him—the alien terrain she was stomping on, or the alcohol, or the nature of what they were talking about confusing her. 

“Were you?” she panicked; her previous nonchalance exchanged for alarm.

“No, no, Scully” he assured her. “No, that’s not what happened.”

Scully exhaled, sunk down, her raw edges buzzing like the atmosphere telling cats of an impending electrical storm.

“You know what I mean,” he prodded. 

A familiar arch of her brow directed him to go on. 

“Did  _ you _ fuck Edward Jerse, or did  _ he _ fuck you?" his clarification. She jerked back, stunned, though she shouldn’t have been. Shouldn’t have been shocked—of course, he would bring that up. “No,” he answered for her, a smile curling at the edges of his mouth, “ _ you _ fucked  _ him _ , didn’t you?”

Without a beat, without flinching, she answered, “yes, I did, what about it?”

Lips sidestepped the straw in favour of a long slurp at the rim of her glass, she steadying him in her line of sight, rolled a large piece of ice around in her mouth.

“Yeah, you did,” he said as though arousal and resentment were vying for footing. Blinking languidly at her, he licked his lips as she crunched down noisily.

They said not a word; were always more upfront without actual speech. Gulping the rest of her gin and tonic, she sucked a cube in and out of her mouth, and his eyes fell to her lips. 

“You want another one of those,” he asked, voice deep and heavy, as he began to rise.

Alcohol swirled inside, simultaneously numbing and provoking her. “Yep,” she replied impetuously with a pop of the ‘P’ at the end, dismissing him to the bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting something new each day in October for Fictober from this tumblr [prompt list](https://fictober-event.tumblr.com/post/628547358001594368/fictober-event-the-prompts-for-2020%22).
> 
> Subscribe to the series [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951573)
> 
> Thank you for reading. Comments most welcome 💕


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FICTOBER Day 11 - Prompt: “you don’t see it?”

Bombay Sapphire churned inside—her gut a powder keg of potential energy, waiting to ignite. Mind swimming from the crystal liquid steadily seeping into her bloodstream; heart pumping it through her body, abuzz. Her brain, her frontal lobe, infiltrating reason and thought. She was glad of it. Titillated by what may come; the concoction of contempt and jealousy and hurt in contention with a brilliant, new unadulterated lust. 

Moving to reposition, she slid herself to the back of the booth, a fresh angle with which to stare at Mulder unobscured. Arousal and petulance began to throb through her, and she wriggled in her seat, clamping the tops of her thighs together. Subtly writhing, garnering friction, she stared at his suit pants, tight across his backside, one foot propped on the footrest along the bottom of the bar. She wondered what the skin, taut over his bare arse, might feel like if she were to drag her fingers over it.

There was a part of Scully that responded to the way Mulder had just spoken to her. A piece she felt ill-equipped to control, so she kept the key to it, somewhat hidden behind strict rationalisation and order. Self-flagellation in the form of restraint and masterful abstinence. A fear, that, once unleashed, she might lack command over that side of herself. Over time, Scully had become aware that Mulder held a key, would jiggle it in the lock every so often, trying to tease out her wild side. The combination this time—arrogance, liquor, his aroma up close and the goddam way he had just watched her mouth as she sucked a cube of ice between her lips.

The beast swirled low in her belly, throbbing between her legs. Repressed since the disaster of Daniel, to a degree released by her encounter with Ed—someone with authority over her, or a bad boy who noticed her sexual side. As much as Mulder flirted with Scully, she didn’t think he saw her in an erotic way. That was, right up until that late afternoon in a shared booth at the back of a dimly-lit, gaudy airport bar.

Drinks clanged onto the table, and he slid them both across to her, slipping in and moving his way around to meet her, in her new position. Convening too close, always so close, but never close enough. Hands to her thighs, she smoothed her skirt, cognisant that he might catch her scent. Perhaps she wanted him to. 

Picking up their drinks in unison, they were yet to make eye contact, their breathing synced, as it would frequently do. 

Mulder took a long pull on his beer and then, in that smooth low voice of his, ventured, “Why?” on an exhale.

There was no mistaking what he was asking her, with that three-letter word, that ostensibly unassuming question. For nigh on three years, she suspected, he'd been biting for a chance to poke her with it. Prod her as to where her recklessness had manifested. The truth was, she had a reckless streak a mile wide. It was the stillest waters that ran the deepest, right? It was a teenaged Dana, stealing her mother’s cigarettes—but only when her father was home from sea because that was when it thrilled her the most. It was seducing her med school professor to test a theory—an idea thrown around a Women’s Lit’ tut; that even the most brilliantly minded men, could be reduced to thinking with their dicks.

He pressed his knee into hers when he asked it, angling his body toward her. His voice gentle but steady—his own hand resting on the top of his thigh, his pinkie finger bumping hers.

Scully picked up her drink and sucked on the straw, felt the cool effervescent liquid bubble on her tongue, the bitter tonic prickle as it ticked down the throat, along with her defences. Returning the tumbler to its coaster, she answered slightly curtly, “I just needed a break—”

“...from me,” he intervened—a statement. He wasn’t asking.

First, she answered with a deliberate slow blink, one eyelid a whip behind. Poked the ice with her straw, saying finally, “It wasn’t about you, Mulder.” An echo of her sentiments at the time it all happened. 

Giving herself a moment to fill her lungs, she allowed her gaze to be drawn to the lights glowing through the coloured glass behind the bar. She sensed his eyes on her; an attempt to pull her back around, she imagined, wanting more. It wasn’t about him back then, but he sure as hell knew how to turn anything of hers, Mulder centric.

“Meeting you and finding out about the X-Files, was like being shot out of a cannon,” she began, still facing forwards. “Physics. Eventually, the momentum was going to slow down enough for gravity to grab a hold of me again; pull me to the ground.” She heard him chuckling warmly. Felt his body reverberate along her side as his pinkie finger began to curl around hers possessively. She permitted him to take a hold of that tiny piece of her. “Four years later and my head stopped spinning, or started spinning, I guess,” she mused. “And I wasn’t sure if I was making the decisions anymore.”

“Scully,” he coaxed, “I don't -- I don't think that quite answers my question...”

“Mulder, I just—” she turned to him, her knee skating up on top of his thigh as she shifted in her seat. 

It was not the time, she formulated, to tell him that a man they had been assigned to investigate for a string of murders, who ate carcinomas for breakfast, had told her he wanted to snack on her too. That she’d had a referral to an oncologist, she was yet to secure an appointment with. That she needed to step outside of herself just for a spell, to not immediately dive into what may come. And that she needed to do all of that beyond his line of sight. So maybe, in that regard, it was about him.

“—I wanted to let go. Take a break, from me, actually.” She stopped, swallowed, and his palm grazed over her hand, encouragingly, his fingers slipping between hers. Clinging to him, she went on, “You probably don’t want to know this, but he was sweet.” Scully looked up at him, her eyes brimming, seeking to gauge his response. His face close, he regarded her with that intense single-mindedness she knew well. “A gentleman,” she continued. “He listened to me. We sat and talked for hours in a bar and …” her voice got quiet. That was it, the appeal. She had opened up to Ed about her complicated relationship with her father, the implications—because he heard her. In under a few hours, he knew more about that cross she bore, than Mulder ever had. “He listened to me,” she said again.

“A gentleman, right up until the point—”

“—Don’t,” she warned, pulling her hand back, but he hung on.

“I listen to you,” he tried, tugging her hand into his lap, stroking the delicate skin there with the pad of his thumb. She scoffed, managed a grin up at him. “Don’t I?” he asked, pouting out his bouncy bottom lip.

Scully exhaled audibly, her face changing as she regarded him with a curious expression. “Why did it bother you so much?”

“It was reckless,” he answered immediately. 

“Reckless? Coming from you?” she scoffed. “You were being an arrogant shithead about it, Mulder.”

“Oh,” he smirked, delighted. “An arrogant shithead was I? Tell me more about that...” he hummed, his tongue darting from his mouth, his free hand making its way over her thigh.

“You just got a little too pushy,” she said, indulging him, placing her palm over his and guiding him down to the hem of her skirt.

“I was worried about you, Scully. I cared about you.  _ Care _ about you,” he clarified. “And to know you had sex with—”

“Mulder,” she interrupted, “that wasn’t the most intimate part of my encounter with him. For me, it wasn’t that I had sex with him that might have left any trauma. I confided in him. I trusted him. I thought he saw me,” she let her eyes sink closed. “I thought he cared.”

Mulder swallowed conspicuously beside her, and she opened her eyes, let go of the hand in his lap and collected her drink. “I wanted it. The sex,” she said between sips on her straw. “He’d tucked me into his bed and went out to the couch. Then I got up and went out to him and seduced him,” she stated, simply. “I was not a victim.”

Scully had begun to encourage Mulder’s exploration, guiding his hand as it started slowly inching up under her skirt.

“Okay, but he tried to kill you, Scully.”

“The only part of that, that upset me, Mulder, was—” biting her lip she willed herself to be honest, to tell him. She gripped his hand a little tighter, “—was, after all I went through, you were such a dick about it.” 

“I know I was,” he said immediately, surprising her. “I’m sorry. Scully, I’m so sorry.” He turned his body into hers, his knee sliding under her thigh.

“Why were you like that?” she implored.

Shaking his head, his breath close, the tiniest curl at the corners of his mouth, “you don’t see it?” he said adoringly. Her impossibly large, bewilderingly blue eyes looked into him “—do you?” he urged, tenderly.

“You were jealous?” she ventured, almost a whisper.

His fingers slipped higher still, sliding the hem of her skirt up her leg, gathering the fabric. Suspended, her heart felt as though it might beat out of her chest, his hot breath moving the fine hairs at the back of her neck.

“Yes,” he told her, voice barely audible. Fingertips skimming over the polyester netting of her nylons, separating skin from skin. “Scully, I was so jealous I couldn’t breathe.”

Despite the dangerous subject matter, there was nothing Scully could have done to hide the look on her face, her jaw dropping opened. Pressing her lips back together she turned her head; he was so close she couldn’t focus. Couldn't see his expression—his face right there as they breathed the same breath. Her mouth got dry, and she licked at her lip, and then sucked it sharply between her teeth, biting down. Neither spoke. He was waiting for her, she supposed, to do or say something— _ anything _ . Ever so gradually, she parted her legs, her backside sliding forward incrementally on the cushioned bench. The tiniest of moans heard, and through a close-up blur, she saw his eyes close, as his fingers picked up their journey again, inching perilously close to her heat.

Their foreheads lolled together, and with his free hand, Mulder reached up and ran the tip of his index finger along her face, tracing the hollow under her sharp cheekbone, across her lip and she caught him. Sucked his finger into her mouth, swirling her tongue around it.

“Jesus,” he breathed.

“Table fifteen, fries,” a disinterested waitress said, dropping a basket onto their table, eying them both wearily, snapping them sharply from their liaison.

Separating, they sat up, straightened themselves, “Yes, thank you,” Mulder managed to say to the woman’s back.

Both flustered, he slid from Scully, fumbled his exit from the booth, stood and excused himself to the bathroom.

Before he walked away, he turned back to her, ducked his chin to his chest, raising his brows and clocking her with a look she couldn't trust herself to interpret. He nodded once, licked his lips and backed away, an audacious glint in his eye, as he spun and disappeared to the back of the bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting something new each day in October for Fictober from this tumblr [prompt list](https://fictober-event.tumblr.com/post/628547358001594368/fictober-event-the-prompts-for-2020%22).
> 
> Subscribe to the series [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951573)
> 
> Thank you for reading. Comments most welcome 💕


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Emilie for letting me bounce my ideas off you for how this might end. For Annie and Dina and Kristin for the beta, thank you so much my BC crew. The last edit is mine - all mistakes are on me.

Juniper berries, quinine and ethanol, dopamine and serotonin—deliciously, deliriously, swept through her like a tempest. Loosening her, lubricating her, flooding her with licentious intentions. 

Under the confines of her clothing, her body prickled; hot and agitated and fucking aroused. An insatiable thirst licking the last drops of her drink from the rim of her glass, would not quench. Eyes scanning the bar, seeking any sign a patron might know her mind—sense her, _smell_ her—she endeavoured to simmer down and contemplate her next move.

Had she not been immersed in such an array of intrepid stimuli; she might have come to a different conclusion. The only thought that surged through her mind though, was that _that_ had been an invitation. One her body had begun to respond to; working its way out of the booth seat. Not entirely sure she would accept the solicitation; at the very least she could walk up, peek in. 

Leaving her handbag—Mulder’s jacket thrown over it—and their carry-on luggage unattended, would prove _not_ to be the most out of character thing she would do that late afternoon.

Blood sluiced through her ears, imparting a warm embracing sense of underwater, of wading, as she drifted toward the dim cavern of the back of the bar. Not quite evening, it hadn’t reached that tipping point of full bladders vying for a bathroom stall, so she found herself alone, loitering in the dark. 

_Oh, God, what was she doing?_

The passage between the ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ was poorly lit, and she felt the blackness like a shroud, blanketing her thoughts and desires. 

Closing her eyes against the shadows, depressing into the textured carpet wall at her back, she drew her finger to her lips and mimicked Mulder’s touch—heard the rumble of his voice echo through her. _Jesus._ Her breath began to match the low base of an 80s love ballad beating out the sorrow of a broken heart from an ancient jukebox. Years of cigarette smoke infused into the walls, combined with the music—the perfect set of provocations to match her disposition, dousing her in reminiscences of her youth. Coaxing her, urging her forward with her plan. _His plan._ Pushing her to oblivion.

Glancing down, she smoothed her skirt, her shirt, sucked in some air and popped an extra button on her blouse. Hands inside her bra, she adjusted her breasts, pulled them up and out. Her underwear was practical, but something told her that it would not be her bra he would be focused on no matter what happened in there.

Waiting there, each tick of time elapsed her bravado as the cocktail of her yearning and sensibilities stirred. Sounds of a flush, the faucet and her chance, jolted her—a shot of adrenalin ripped up her body, dispersing to her extremities. A cursory glimpse of the bar told her no-one was approaching, so she set aside the tiniest atom of doubt and pushed on the swinging door, slipping her way into the Men’s room. 

Three stalls, all empty. Mulder alone, his back to her, hands in the sink. Catching her behind him—in front of him in the mirror—he whipped his head around, body chasing quickly. Initial astonishment discharged immediately; his face cast in an amorous visage.

Scully knew her expression mirrored his as she leant her back up against the door, pushing it closed with her body weight, faster than the hinges were doing of their own accord. Hands behind her, she felt for the catch, clicked it locked. 

A smirk swept Mulder’s mouth to the side, and a devilish glint sparked; a flare from his moss-green eyes with the snap of the door being secured. Their privacy procured. 

Time stretched. Each beat an eternity as Mulder wiped his hands haphazardly on his pants, making his obviously growing erection more prominent. Eyes onyx with desire, he shot a look to her cleavage, then swept down her body and back up. Heart thrumming in her ears, she fixed on him as he progressed, like liquid, flowing toward her. Hands still tucked behind her; the volume of her breasts pressed against the confines of her bra as her chest heaved with endorphin fuelled breath. She felt every inch of his gaze as he scanned her, eyes raking over her as if he were dragging his fingertips all over her body. Responding, she gushed; damp. Palpitated and swooned, and, like a cliché, her knee joints gave her pause that they may not continue to carry her. 

Seconds catching up, and he was there, so close. Monumental before her. Looming over her, his scent and heat dripping off him as he bent down and spoke in her ear. “This isn’t the Ladies’ room, Scully.” Teasing her, his hot breath slicing across her cheek as he stood back to his full height, his rigid cock bumping into her abdomen.

“And that’s not a gun in your pocket, Mulder,” she countered, raising a brow pointedly.

A grin took over this face, and he pulsed himself against the jut of her hip bone, “no, it’s not.”

As with all things, they slipped into erotica with ease. 

The magnetism of Fox Mulder pulled on her. Played and jostled that little key—oiled up and slippery—coaxing her opened. She volleyed back, countering the pressure he throbbed into her belly, and she felt him flourish and leap at her touch.

“He fucked me,” Scully provoked, stretching herself up to him. Warbling tipsily, lips brushing the shell of his ear, she concluded in a purr: “—bent over a table.”

“Scully,” he sounded. Didn’t quite say it, just breathed her name on an exhale, looking down at her like he’d never laid eyes on her before. More accurately, with a look, she had never seen—like he wanted to ravage her. Consume and devour her. And, oh God, did she ever want him to.

Scully felt his fingers seek her hand, and she curled her palm around them. His hand was surprisingly cool, soft yet strong. Back-stepping toward the sink, he gently dragged her, eyes never leaving hers. Then he spun her, hands to her shoulders, steering her into position in front of the mirror. Behind her, he stood, a palm between her shoulder blades, urging her forward until she needed to catch herself; on either side of the basin.

Mulder continued his pursuit, spreading himself over her back, cradling her backside in his pelvis, steel cock crushed between them. Long arms reached low, a hand to her ankle and he fondled her tenderly, began tracing up the back of her nylon covered leg. Chin nudging between her shoulder and her ear, his five o’clock stubble caught on her hair as he growled, “I want to taste you, Scully,” swiping a soft, warm tongue along the side of her neck.

“Hmm,” she moaned—his arousing request, proximity and radiating fever, forcing the sound from her without intent. Heat rate quickening, her breath became shallow as Mulder, this man she had loved, had craved, for six long years, set about reconstructing her sexual fantasies, in the physical.

His journey up her toned calf continued, as his other arm belted her waist, resolutely heaving her onto him. Overflowing with desire and slippery arousal, she felt high, dizzy—wet and warm and wanton.

A low rumble of a chuckled transferred through the mass of her after she flinched; laughing when his finger chanced upon the little hole behind her knee. He indulged himself there, eyes hooded as he studied her face. Pulling roughly, he began to grow the tear; the netted fibre, and her self-control, coming undone.

Whenever Mulder looked at her, for any longer than a glance, it was as though he could extract her thoughts. Bewitch and bewilder her—his unrelenting gaze burning until she would look away a frame before her secrets might be known.

Perhaps it was her lack of inhibitions, alcohol having worn them away like a rising tide. Or maybe it was the obstruction of the looking glass, light refracting her likenesses out to him, less intrusive, so she might let him see. Might allow him to witness. To watch her reaction as he burrowed his way to the ticklish flesh on her inner thigh. To study her expression as she bared her hidden self to him. She remained, under the weight of it, his desirous regard bouncing back at her, gleaning something within.

Tantalising sounds combined. Rasps of Mulder’s hot breath curling the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. The flimsy garment being torn from her skin, bleeding out a rapacious feral energy. Compelling her bones, her muscles, herself to bump back into his rigid cock, slip her legs apart, and force her skirt higher up her thighs.

Bottom lip clamped within her teeth; she watched his reflection. His dark eyes fucking her from the other side of the mirror as the tear, and his fingers reached the gusset of her stockings. Roughly, he ripped the fabric off her hot pussy; bursting her free from any inhibition, she may have been hanging on to.

Possessively, his large hand cupped her from behind, jostled between her legs—her sex, shielded by only the thin fabric of briefs, nestled in his palm. Still, they looked. Could not tear away, shock and lust vying for first position. Held snug between her legs under his hand, what felt like his middle finger flexed, each knuckle bending exquisitely, as he drew his fingertip along her seam. Back and forth. Staying inside the lines, up and down, ever so carefully over sensible cotton; her arousal seeping a path.

Seemly without thought, or choice, she increased her sacral curve, settled onto his hand – coated in her want and scent. Scully had studied those hands. Felt them on her lower back for years, watched them deliver sunflower seeds to his waiting tongue, responded with a low burning fire inside when they would sweep her forehead, or caress her jaw. The feel of him there, a most natural progression; that the most intimate part of her earthly self should be held by him that way. Hungrily pulsating inside, waiting for him, she pressed herself further onto his palm.

Accepting her invitation, Mulder twisted his finger, persisted past the elastic of her damp underwear, slipping seamlessly in—straight inside of her; into her wet, welcoming heat. 

Scully gasped, sucking air into her lungs as Mulder melted his torso over her spine. Lips to her ear her growled, “do you have any idea, Dana, how long I’ve wanted to put my fingers inside of you?” Deeper, he dove, punctuating his words. Bones melting, her head fell back; cheek to cheek and he sucked her earlobe into his warm mouth.

She drew him in, cunt clutching his finger, pulling on him. He nudged her face with his, hummed in her ear, his other fingers gently caressing her lips, ghosting over her swollen bud.

The grip he had around her waist tightened, and she would have lost her footing but for his muscular forearm.

“Oh fuck, Scully. You’re sooo goddamn wet,” he panted at her reflection. “For me?” he queried; another finger assembling within.

“Mm-hmm,” she sounded nodding, expression opaque with lust.

Behind her, close, fingers busy between her legs, he grew messy, precision abandoned. Stirring and swirling, roughly rubbing, he slid a trail. Bumping over her clit, he stroked her pussy with passion, gliding his slippery fingers between her cheeks and back and inside; painting her in her slick. A mutual creation—each the artist and the muse. 

Scully let go, allowed herself to push through the gates of Nirvana, discarding her sober, demure self to another realm. The bar, the bathroom with its Men’s room smell and long-forgotten cracked tiles, their talk of who they had fucked whilst managing to fuck one another over, dissipating, dissolving as she began to unbridle. As she morphed into her long-forgotten carnal self.

A base melody—Mulder moaning in response to her pleasure—engulfed and surrounded her; titillating her with an overload of sensations, propelling her deeper, toward an edge. To a place, she conceived, she may not have ever truly ventured.

He set a cadence she began to dance to; rocking to his beat as he fingered her—in and out, grinding her arse back against the bulge in his pants. Legs slipping further apart, she opened for him, her body undulating, directing his fingertips where to go. 

“Oh God, Mmmu…,” she enunciated, just the sound of the start of his name. 

And then…

…it was bound to happen, someone on the other side of the door yanking them from their fornication. Temporarily they immobilised at the invading sounds; first the slap of a heavy hand on the hollow wooden door, pushing intently. Then the knob aggressively agitated. And again, with more vigour. Then a rapping becoming a knocking; hard and erratic and loud enough to deduce the patron on the other side was quite inebriated. 

Within the space of a few seconds, Mulder had retrieved his hand from between Scully’s legs—her skirt falling back into place—and helped her clamber into a stall. His long arms reaching, he twisted the lock to the Men’s room undone before bundling himself into the cubicle with her.

Turning the latch on the stall door, he spun around and encountered Scully, seated on the toilet lid in front of him, legs broad. Without preamble, she pulled him in, hands tugging at the back of his thighs, bringing his crotch close. Trembling, she bit her lip, her whole physique abuzz. As if they had not been disrupted—a choice made wholly by her over-stimulated body—she continued down their uncharted path of desire.

Looking up, beholding him towering over her, the back of her head bumped onto her shoulders, neck stretched long. He looked down, regarded her, his chin to his chest. Sharpening her focus, and raising a brow, her gaze crept slowly downward.

Scully had helped Mulder out of clothing before. Skilled doctors’ hands mending injury or tending to a traumatised psyche; confident in her command over his person, her right to touch and manoeuvre him. Mulder was not ill, and she was not playing doctor. Opposing thoughts ran through her as she reached for him, trepidation and excitement flooding her. First, do no harm. _First, get Mulder’s dick out._

Licking at her lips, she carefully began undoing the button on his pants, using both hands. Lifting back the tab of fabric, she revealed his fly. Taking hold of the zipper, she traced his shaft, pressed against the wool fabric as she slid it down, releasing each tooth from its partner. Mulder groaned and swung to the rhythm of Shiner Bock, his belt, holster and gun clanging to the floor.

Excitement bloomed, anticipation not unlike unwrapping a gift, while she pushed her hand into the waistband of his boxer briefs. A shiver etched up her spine as she encountered hot satin skin over steel. Curling her fingers around him, she inched his cock out, leant back from him to get a better look.

Drinking him in, there was a Mulderness to the scent of him, musty and fragrant. _Fuck_ , he was magnificent. She wanted him inside of her. In her mouth, her cunt. Had to devour him. At that moment couldn’t comprehend how she had known him for so long without possessing that part of him. 

Skin stretched, pink and taut around his perfect rigid length and considerable girth; he was spilling with desire. She seized his hip, drawing her face close. Holding him firmly around the base in her other fist—poised at her lips—she paused, looked up at him with a question. “Did she … um?”, she almost whispered, completing her query with a nod to his groin.

A look of surprise splayed across his features, jaw opening with a shocked scoff. He quickly wedged his bottom lip between his teeth, shook his head _‘no’_. 

And she swallowed him.

Lips and teeth agape, taking him into her mouth. Moisture formed at her lash line, a tear spilling as her tongue cradled the underside of his shaft. A thrill flashed deep in her belly, salaciousness erupting as she began to suck on him; head bobbing back and forth.

Swaying backward, the top of his body banged against the door, shoulders wedging into the corner of the stall.

“Jesus, Scully,” he drawled softly, palm covering the back of her head.

Nervous he might get carried away, hold her firmly and force himself into her, Scully ceased, mouth still wrapped around him. But he gently stroked her hair, fingernails scraping over her scalp, electricity tickling to tips of her fingers and toes. 

“Scully,” he groaned, his other hand affectionately caressing her cheek. 

“Hey?” came a confused male voice, “I’m not Scully, dude,” sounding irritated, and close in the small bathroom.

“Sorry mate,” Mulder ejected loudly, in an amused tone, glancing down at Scully, whose face had cracked into a grin to match Mulder’s, as she jerked him in her fist. Titillation blossomed at what she was doing, with a stranger only feet away.

Mouth opening, she took up her ravenous cause once more, lips pulling pressure up and down his phallus. Over and again, she drew back, the tip of his cock remaining in her mouth as she swirled and teased him with her tongue, then swallowed him once more; on repeat. Reaching under him, she cupped him in her hand, softy tugging, eliciting a primal grunt. Continuing her exploration, his erotic noises bounced around the echoey room, she touched him a little further back, pressing her index and middle fingers to his perineum, rubbing him there as he grew and pulsed in her throat. 

Scully had loved before. And Scully had given many blow jobs in her time. Not ever before though, had she more completely understood the concept of _showing_ someone you loved them, than she did, sitting before Mulder with his erect penis in her mouth, in the grimy bathroom, at the ‘On The Fly’ bar that late afternoon. They had well and truly crossed that imaginary line they’d haphazardly drawn so early in their relationship, and she felt them meld as one; both connecting in the physical and uniting in the abstract. Her love manifested.

Wriggling closer to the edge of the toilet seat, legs widening, Scully held Mulder’s hips. Slackening her jaw and breathing through her nose, she continued to bob and suck, hands then slipping into his boxers, dragging over the smooth skin of his arse.

A slight change in his vocal tone, and the sensation of him throbbing and twitching in her throat, alerted her that he was beginning to peak. Slowly, she withdrew him, embracing the base of his cock in her hand. Looking up at him, she continued to pleasure him—pumping him, sliding her saliva and his arousal back and forth in her loose fist; allowing him to return from the edge. His lips firmly between his teeth, he looked down at her—a familiar expression, one that would overcome him when she did something that particularly impressed him.

The urinal flushed beyond their stall, followed by footsteps and sounds from the bar invading the room as the interrupting intruder opened and exited the door. 

“Scully, oh, Sc… ah …. sto—,” Mulder uttered loudly, jerking back and immediately taking her hand and guiding her up to him.

“Scully,” he repeated, holding her jaw, “I want to... _Jesus_ ,” he hesitated, “—I need to be inside you. I need to feel you, and if you keep doing that...” he nodded downward. 

Scully bit the instant smirk from her lips, sucking them between her teeth as she flashed him a coquettish look.

And then he pulled her in, crushing her to him and pawing at her. Glaze unrelenting, he touched her everywhere, all over her body, over her clothes, hungrily. Grabbing at her; a palm covering her lower back, slid down, cupping her arse. He traced up the curve of her waist, hand landing on her breast, grabbing; thumb and forefinger finding her nipple hard, pinching and pulling it, beneath fabric.

Scully’s sexual longing for Mulder had been burst open, and like Pandora’s Box, it could not be put back. Grabbing the back of his neck, she jumped, and he caught her, seizing handfuls of her arse as he spun and pinned her to the door, her heels falling to the floor.

Urgency overwhelmed her while he grunted and growled, jostling her into position. Leaning back to make space, she dove her fingers between them and held his cock. He steadied, banged his forehead to hers, looked at her close, blurry and unfocused.

“Condom?” he asked.

There was a beat—their eyes blinking, suspended in a moment. Mulder’s face contorted. Twisted into what looked like it may land on regret at what he’d said. He opened his mouth again, but she gave him no time to speak, growled, “no,” and broke from his gaze.

The top of her head fell to his shoulder, and she looked down, watched as he took his erection from her, pressed his hot cock along her slippery inner thigh. Scully manoeuvred her underwear aside, and then she felt him—searing, fortified flesh and blood, against her swollen, velvet want.

Lifting her head, she bit his neck as he entered her. Pushed himself up into her, inch by delicious inch. She could feel them join as he split her. Cunt clutching at him, spasming around his girth until they met most intimately. She squeezed him inside of her body, bearing down and holding him there—eyes imploring as he slowly eased out of her, almost all the way. 

“Oh, God,” she supplicated when he thrust back inside.

She had dreamt about him. Daydreamed. Outright fantasised in boring meetings. About fucking him. Making love with him. _Knowing_ him. About what it might be to shed their skin together. Though she didn’t believe in destiny, she felt, so deeply within her, in a place she dared not visit or try to dismantle; _them_. Together beyond the FBI. Beyond the dangerous world, they tore through in tandem. Some thoughtful un-inebriated part of herself knew that _Mulder_ and _Scully,_ as the roles they had always played, had to switch themselves off, if it were to ever begin. For them to get past the bullshit. Past the unresolved sexual tension that plagued them, often masked by a six-year-long pretence of professionalism or annoyance or indifference to that side of one another.

He jerked up into her, and she released his neck. Pressed the back of her skull onto the stall door and squeezed her eyes shut, letting the physical take over. Engulfed in his scent. She felt small and light, supported there, under her arse by his strong forearm. She felt powerful too, surrounding him, felt a command over him as she held within her the most sensitive and vulnerable physically part of him.

“Oh, fuck. Your tits Scully,” he panted, making his way down her neck with his tongue. “I want to suck your tits.”

 _Tits._ Such a crude word, but expelled from his pouty suckable lips, sent her arousal into overdrive. His animal brain skipping reason and logic. He was trying, one-handed, to find the clasp of her bra behind her. 

“Pull it down,” she ordered.

“God, Scully,” he panted. Choked her name, tearing down the cup of her bra. 

Hunching over he sucked a nipple into his mouth, bit and suckled her, the rhythm of his thrusts creating a delicious pull between breast and teeth.

Legs wrapped about him, thighs spread wide, her cunt was flush against the coarse hair over his taut abdominal muscles. Every movement created delicious friction onto her clit as he shoved himself into her; grunting in time with the door rattling behind her against its flimsy turn-lock catch. 

There was so much about Mulder that was familiar to Scully. She took for granted that she knew him so well that she could recognise his footfall, that even groaning in ecstasy it was still very much _his_ distinct voice. That she knew the scent of his hair. Knew that smell, up so close. The comforting aroma when they were on a flight to begin a case, or about to turn a corner together and chase down a monster. It was invading her and not making sense that _her_ Mulder was nuzzling her chest, lapping at her breasts. It shot a thrill through her; lightening ripping her further open as his cock slid in and out.

Releasing her breast, he lifted his head, and they locked eyes, gazes caught. Still and clear and steady—juxtaposed by the unrelenting pounding and grasping and grabbing, playing out between their bodies.

“Uh … uh … uh,” Scully sounded on each push into her, as if the sound was being forced from her body. Gripping him around the neck, eyes trained on his, he continued his onslaught.

Her mouth opened on a moan and he put his fingers in there, the pad of his thumb running across her slippery tongue. She sucked on him, looking at him amorously. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he told her, puffed.

She did the same, finger into his mouth, too, like she was searching for more words. And they came, as he began to slow his movements, somehow going deeper.

“Scully, God. You feel so goddam good,” he panted. “This is right. Don’t you feel it?”

It _was_. And she _did_. 

Emotion stirred, eroticism and love, combined. A flame lit long ago, fanned and burned.

“Aha,” she choked in agreement, her whole body on fire. 

Continuing to hold her up, one forearm beneath her, his free hand found her clit, slippery and swollen. He began to play her most intimately. Swirling and flicking as she started to close in around him, her walls clutching and contracting. Brushing and teasing her, building to a frenzy, was all it took to tip her into euphoria. His head fell back as he came, just as she did. His jaw opened, and she bit his chin as she jerked around him, feeling him throb as he emptied into her. 

He continued to hold her up, her arms around his neck, panting into his ear as she moved through her rapture—his body weight pressed onto her, jamming her in place.

Coming down, her body quivered and jolted as she felt him continue to pulse and discharge inside of her.

Draped over him, what she said next came from her lips without thought; his same question about Jerse, from the bar earlier, shot back at him.

“Why did _you_ …?” the rest unspoken.

“What? Oh,” he replied, and she knew he understood. “Um, she um…” he panted back, stopping mid-sentence. “Scully—” he cooed instead.

“Mulder—” she warned, urging him to answer.

“Just, she … she was … um. She was just _there._ ”

Squeezing her thighs around his waist, she lifted up, and he and his hot cum slipped from inside of her.

Twisting her wrist as her feet hit the cold floor, she looked at her watch. “We’re going to miss our flight.”


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel this story could have ended at the end of chapter 3. A choose your own adventure of what happens next with these two. Maybe it was this...

“We’re not sitting together?” Mulder questioned the flight attendant at the gate.

“No, sir. I apologise, but due to the delays, we’ve had to add more passengers to the flight and—”

“You can’t just—” he interrupted, attempting to look over the counter at the computer screen.

Scully noticed him reach for his inside pocket, his badge. Touching his arm, she halted him. “Mulder, it’s fine.”

Bookended by two strangers, Scully was tucked into a middle seat near the front of the aircraft. She began to sober on a waft of strong coffee and stale sweat to the left, pretended to be asleep for a chatty woman on the right. 

The fire Mulder lit continued to surge within; the embers still aglow as strobes of reminiscences dashed across her frontal lobe. A slide show of erotic mental images of Mulder. The expression on his face as he watched her in the mirror, pushing his fingers inside of her. His Adonis belt up close, flexing as she took him in her mouth. The tickle of his pubic hair on her nose. Ghosts of his breath down her neck, and his carnal growl in her ear as he came inside of her. 

The gusset of her underwear was still sticky between her legs. She could have changed her briefs, had time on the plane before take-off, and a clean pair in her carry on, but she wanted him there, humid and aromatic. Didn’t care that she might emit sex. She liked it. As though part of him was still cupping her intimately.

Shifting and settling further into her seat—complimentary blanket over her lap—the sounds of the engine cocooned her alone with her thoughts. _What have I done? —_ endeavoured to plague her, as her mind rolled in on itself. Conflicting concepts vyed for purchase. Grievous feelings of jealousy, of a dead woman, countered with an overwhelming understanding that for some time Mulder had wanted her— _to put his fingers inside of her._ Those notions free-floated, not quite resolving; as pieces of her alcohol addled mind puzzled back together.

Skipping the complimentary dinner on offer—which she would have given Mulder had he been by her, and as was their custom, he would have eaten along with his own—she continued her act of sleep. Confirmation of what she suspected, of Diana, had unravelled, extracting a bitterness as sobriety began its command on her.

Sometime during the flight, sleep or unconsciousness had taken its claim on her, as she was roused by the announcements for landing. Stretching out as best she could in the confined space, she started collecting her belongings. And herself. Standing after touchdown, her thoughts oscillated between resentment and clemency, and she attempted to settle somewhere unsettled; the familiarity of denial, her head buried deeply in the sands of discontent.

 _What have I done, what have I done, what have I done?_ —steamrolled through her head like a mantra, as she disembarked.

What have _we_ done?

Mulder chased her down at arrivals. She didn’t wait for him at the gate. Scully had sobered up and shut down. 

“See you Monday, Mulder,” she told him as he caught her.

“Scully, what? Wait!”

She spun, began to walk away from him, backward stepping; carry-on trailing on its little wheels. Giving him her best, curt, smile, “I’m fine. It’s fine,” forced from her lips. “You, um … have a great weekend,” she finished, wincing at herself. Turning, she made for the taxi rank knowing Mulder had to collect an oversized bag from the carousel; his clothes, and the paperwork from the case too much for the overhead.

She kept pace and jumped in the first cab that pulled up, without looking back.

Once home, she began her routine, barely keeping her equilibrium in check; showering, unpacking, wiping down her spotless kitchen; sorting washing. A newfound concentration to each task, as she tried to keep her thoughts a bay.

_Blowing off steam, a bit of fun, that’s all it was. It was no big deal, come Monday, they could carry on._

Those flimsy rationalisations were not winning the battle in her mind. The baseness of sitting on a toilet seat, sucking her FBI partner’s dick in a dingy Men’s room kept sending waves of mortification through her.

Was it that he had been most intimate with her, fingers and cock inside of her? Or that she had shown him—let him _see_ her most completely?

The more significant implication loomed large as she sorted her darks from lights; that there was no way she could go back. She had _had_ him. _Known_ him. And that could not be undone. 

Eddying with those ideas was the knowledge that he would come to her; his gentle wrapping on her door made her jump, nonetheless.

Once at her door, she rose onto her tippy toes and looked through the peephole. “What is it Mulder?” she asked through the solid wood.

“Scully. Can I come in?” His voice was soft, laced with an uneasy quality she knew well. A tone that would usually follow declarations from her that she was ‘fine’.

She lowered to her feet, hand over the doorknob, twisted it and pulled. Stepping back from the door, she gave him the space to step inside. Hair damp, fresh shower scent, jeans and a T-shirt casual—another favourite Mulder.

“Mulder, I’m sorry, about today,” she confessed, as she turned without making eye contact, walking to the kitchen. “I don’t know what came over me,” she continued, shaking the kettle, water sluicing inside.

“About six nips of Bombay’s finest, I’d say,” he quipped, following her, chuckling.

Glad for the humour, for Mulder just being Mulder, despite what had happened between them, she shot a smirked back at him over her shoulder. “Ha,” she huffed, “I just … I’m embarrassed—” Covering her face with her palms, she apologised from beneath her hands, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he assured, his fingers curling around her elbow. He pulled on her and she turned to him, allowed him to gently pry her hands away. “Well I _am_ , but not about that.” 

“Sorry. I don’t do that kind of thing,” she urged, shaking her head.

“Scully. _I’m_ sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out that way.”

“What?”

“You know,” he validated, in that low soothing voice he would sometimes get. He stepped himself near, their abdomens grazing, as he rested his warm hands on her shoulders.

Standing awkwardly in front of him, picking at a cuticle, Scully felt his eyes boring into her, and she could not meet his gaze. Even after he tried to lift her face with his finger.

“Please look at me.” Fingertip to her chin morphed into his palm, cupping her jaw. Tilting her face, she saw him, almost indiscernibly nudged her cheek into his hand.

“It happened, just the once.”

“—I shouldn’t have asked…” she began over him, as he tried to explain. Then confusion furrowed her brow.

“It didn’t mean anything, Scully. And if I thought for one second that—” he stopped, his imploring look telling of the complete sentence. 

He stared at her. And she was letting him. Something churned in her belly, reminding her that only six hours earlier he had been inside of her, had pressed her up against the wall and she had felt him move within.

“Mulder, it’s okay, I’m okay. It doesn’t have to be a big deal,” she remarked, her tiny voice contradicting her statement.

“But it is a big deal, Scully, it’s the very biggest deal because—” His pupils volleyed back and forth between hers, and he licked his lips. She could have sworn she saw his focus sharpen. “—Because ... it’s always been you,” he finished, thumb drawing little circles below her ear.

Scully’s lips parted, and she went to speak. Mouth dry; her overwhelming feelings did not manifest into words. 

“I wanted so badly for it to be you,” he whispered.

Her breath quickened, and she licked at her lips, wanting to say something. Anything.

“I don’t regret a thing, Scully,” he confessed. “I wanted this. I _want_ this.”

“I just—, Mulder ... I’m not sure,” she faltered, face hot. “Um, how we ... what we...” she swallowed hard, shaking her head. “What comes next?” 

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay,” he soothed, pulling her into a hug. Engulfing her as if she was in shock after an attack. She relaxed into his embrace. His distinct scent somehow seemed like it belonged to her. Her arms—that had wrapped around his waist—slinging familiarly lower. 

They stayed that way, tucked neatly together, the way they did. Breath syncing. Mulder’s cheek to the top of her head, hers nestling into his chest. 

“It was only ever going to start this way,” he whispered into her hair after a spell. “Tell me you don’t know it too?” He kissed the hair over her crown, then pressed his other cheek over that spot. “We can ignore it, blame the mechanical issues and too much gin—”

Emotion grew as tears prickled at the back of her throat. Something agitated inside; an old familiar longing. A feeling of missed opportunity. That what she cared about most in the world was being held, like sand in her hands. That it could all slip away so easily. That she might let him walk out the door without a word.

“—Or we could take the gift that it’s done,” he continued. “We’ve started now.” 

Suddenly aware of her attire, satin pyjamas, there was only a thin layer of fabric between her body and the cotton of his T-shirt. Her nipples felt sharp against the give of his flesh. Pulling him close, she felt the rhythm of him. The comfort of his low vibration reverberating through her, steeping her in a calmness. Maybe it was, in fact, this Mulder that was her favourite. This Mulder whom she could melt into, who spoke from his heart. Who had rubbed her back when she was ill. Who had let her sleep in his bed after Emily, after Pfaster, and gave her the dignity of not ever speaking of it. Bedside Mulder. Comforting Mulder. Intimate Mulder. Mulder, who, even on the precipice of something so potentially enormous, gave Scully the controls. 

“I know what I want Scully, but—” he pulled back from her, tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She was looking at him and biting her lip, save from actually speaking. “Tell me you didn’t feel it?” he whispered.

Whatever was between them was stretched to the limit, she knew it. Pull away now, and it might not snap back. Maybe it would break.

Her bottom lip quivered.

“Hey. It’s okay. There is no pressure from me, okay? Your call and we shut the door on this.”

“I just,” she exhaled, “—I might need some time,” she managed, eyes glistening.

“Alright,” he said, and then a cheeky glint sparkled in his eye. “Why don’t we say that _I_ fucked you this time,” he told her, a brow arching. “And, if there is ever a next time, _you_ come and find _me_. _You_ fuck _me_ ,” he proposed. “Ball is entirely in your court, Scully, Okay?” he finished tenderly.

She smiled at him, a tight-lipped smile, a small nod in agreement. And though relief swept through her, that she had been offered some space and time, something she couldn't quite name had begun to quietly seep through her fingers.

He held her jaw again, looked like he might have had something else to say but instead flashed her the most adorable smile, brushed his thumb over her cheek and pressed his lips to her forehead. Then he turned on his heel and walked out the door. Departed, leaving her with the ghost of his scent and a choice. 

Grains of thought and images and feelings, their history; cascaded down through the maze of her mind and her heart, in the space of but a moment. What may come, laid out before her. What had been. The risk she had taken that day, drinking and asking an inappropriate question. It wasn’t about Diana; it never had been. Scully had unconsciously created a moment for them to crawl inside of. A moment for them to shed their skin inside of. _The_ moment. And it had just walked out her door.

Like a torrent, she rushed for the entrance, swung around the door jam, hanging on to the frame. “Mulder—”, she called, as she saw him almost disappear around the corner, down the stairs.

He stopped short, taking one step back toward her apartment. “What’s wrong?” he said immediately.

“I think maybe you’re wrong,” she called, trying hard to control her breathlessness, a playfulness to her voice, drawing him back.

A grin etched across his lips. “Yes?” he drawled, long strides until he was back at her threshold.

“Um,” she wavered, looking up at him through her lashes. “I’m really not sure it was _you_ doing the ‘fucking’ today, that's all,” she provoked.

“Really,” he replied; brow furrowed in mock thought. “I guess I can see that. You did come to me, didn’t you?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she flirted. “And, you know, I did ... you know.” She nodded, toward his crotch, taking a step into him. “With my mouth,” she confirmed, chewing around the words, tongue lingering on her lips at the end of her statement.

“Ah,” he sounded; an expression she had seen earlier that day flashed across his features as he stepped toward her. Gliding his arms about her waist, he kept moving, steered her backward, returning them both inside her apartment, closing the door with his foot.

“So, tag, I’m it?” he smirked, slipping his hands under the fabric of her pyjamas, his fingertips beginning to caress the taut, smooth skin at the top of her arse.

Scully smiled at him affectionately, skating her hands under his T-shirt, scraping her fingernails lightly over his lower back.

Neck craned up to see him, his down toward her, she glanced at his mouth. At the way his bottom lip jutted out, glistened in the lamplight, and she realised—they hadn’t kissed. Of all of the things they had done to one another that day, _with_ one another, they had not shared a kiss. Looking into his face, so familiar, she felt as though she could study his features for all of time and still marvel at the way they fit together, just so.

Reaching up and holding his jaw, she swiped her thumb across his bottom lip, realising she was glad of it. Pleased that they could experience their first kiss, sober and cognisant. She thought perhaps he was thinking the same thing, the way his eyes swept across her face before settling on her lips. Slowly, he ran his hands up the sides of her body, enticing a shiver along her spine. His palms tenderly made their way to her shoulders, then up her neck, before cupping her jaw. Bending his neck, he lowered to her, stealing her breath as he pressed his mouth to hers, electricity dispersing through her being like starlight. Opening, she welcomed his warm, soft tongue as he began to gently lap at her, accompanied by the smallest of whimpers. Tippytoes and her tongue swept into his mouth, and she thought her insides might burst; overflowing with emotions and arousal. He held the back of her head and their kiss deepened as they explored every part of each other's mouths. Touching and stroking; their hands began to move all over; under clothing, caressing and grabbing. Mouths fused, tongues twisting and licking, their bodies grinding and rubbing. Lips bruised over lips, and their jaws loosened, hinging opened and closed as they tilted their heads in opposition, fusing together.

Scully could not be sure if they had stood there in her kitchen kissing for a minute or an hour. She did know that it felt right. _Was_ right.

He tasted of mint toothpaste and salty seeds. He tasted of Mulder. Of home. 

“Yeah,” she mused, after drawing back from him, “you’re _it_. You always have been.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Annie for the beta and Dina for looking this over, and to Emilie who helped with the direction x
> 
> The last edit is mine - all mistakes are on me.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, comments always welcome x


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